Dave Dombrowski strikes out on Alex Cora again, and John Middleton is preparing to reward him for it

Alex Cora isn’t coming to Philadelphia. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Dave Dombrowski went after Cora to manage the Phillies in 2027, and Cora told him he’s taking next season off.

Great.

That makes two years in a row Dombrowski has gone hunting for Alex Cora and come back empty-handed. Two years of chasing the same guy, with the same relationship and the same 2018 championship history to sell, and he still couldn’t close.

While all of that is happening, every sign points to John Middleton handing Dombrowski a massive contract extension. The man who can’t land his top managerial target, who looked at a flawed roster at the deadline and called it good enough, and who watched it get bounced in three games by the Braves, is about to get paid more to keep doing it.

Shocker: Nobody in the Phillies Organization is Ever Held Accountable

That’s the real story here, and it goes way beyond Alex Cora. This franchise never holds anyone accountable. The bullpen was a mess all season and nobody paid for it. The deadline came and went without the help this team obviously needed, and nobody paid for it.

The offense fell from fourth to 22nd in OPS, and nobody paid for it. The only person who lost his job this year was Rob Thomson, and that happened in April.

Now the guy most responsible for how this season ended is the one picking the next manager, with an extension on the way. That’s not how you build a winner. That’s how you build a comfortable organization where the same people keep making the same mistakes and getting rewarded for it.

Don Mattingly Is the Easy Way Out:

With Alex Cora gone, the path of least resistance is staring everyone in the face. Don Mattingly is already here, he’s under contract through 2027, and he said after the Braves series that he’d keep managing if the organization wants him to.

Drop the interim tag, send out a press release and move on.

Don Mattingly deserves real credit for what he did. He took over a 9-19 team that was falling apart and went 79-55 the rest of the way, a .590 clip and roughly a 95-win pace, to get the Phillies to 88-74 and into the postseason.

He steadied a clubhouse that badly needed it.

However, I’m not convinced he’s the right guy, and it starts with October. Mattingly won three straight NL West titles with the Dodgers and never got them to a World Series. His 2013 team lost in the NLCS, and his 2014 and 2015 teams went out in the Division Series.

His one postseason trip with Miami ended with the Braves sweeping him in 2020. This year’s team went out in the first round. He’s a good regular season manager. This roster doesn’t need help in the regular season.

Old School Isn’t Going to Fix This:

The bigger issue is what kind of manager this team needs. The Phillies’ biggest problem is that nobody gets held accountable, and old school, keep-everybody-comfortable managers like Mattingly aren’t built to change that.

This core needs someone who walks in and makes people uncomfortable. Someone who benches a struggling star, moves him down the lineup and tells him why to his face. Someone who demands more from a group that keeps hitting the same wall in October. It doesn’t help that Mattingly’s son, Preston, is the general manager working under Dombrowski. Keeping it in the family isn’t the shakeup this franchise needs.

Middleton Needs to Wake Up:

Bryce Harper doesn’t have a ring, Zack Wheeler isn’t getting any younger, and this window is closing. John Middleton is about to reward the man who has spent two years failing to land his top choice for manager and built a roster that went home in three games. If that extension happens, the message to everyone in this organization is that nothing has to change.

The Phillies don’t need another familiar face and they don’t need another comfortable hire. They need somebody, anybody, in that building who is willing to hold people accountable.

Right now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen from the top down.

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